Wednesday, August 31, 2016

PBM Report Cards

One of the concepts that I am going to try and introduce in the coming weeks, via Suspense & Decision magazine, is that of PBM Report Cards.

My son is back in school, in the aftermath of his summer vacation coming to an end (Boo! Hiss! Boss!), and if he has to be subject to the frenzied feeling of being downsized to a report card, then I figure that's what is good for his goose might just be equally good for our gander.

The issue of whether ours can be a collective gander at all or not aside, I've pondered various different things over the past many months, as far as coming up with some mechanism to try and instill some kind of rating methodology into the modern era of play by mail gaming.

There will be report cards for the magazine, Suspense & Decision, and for PBM companies and for the lineal descendants of PBM companies and gaming moderators. On the one hand, it's all an exercise in comparing apples and oranges, anyway, while on the other hand, I really do feel as though having some kind of rating methodology in place could yet prove to be a boon to the PBM industry.

Having PBM report cards will enable the PBM industry to have a common scale, even if the grading process used by various individuals proves to be a rather subjective experience. I'll probably try to implement something in the coming weeks, and then we can possibly refine the PBM report cards, going forward.

Like everything else, we'll have to just try and iron the kinks out of it as we go.

3 comments:

At the moment, I am looking at going with a combination of A through F letter scheme inter-spliced with some individual scoring. It's not finalized, yet, and it may change as the magazine goes forward, from issue to issue.

There will be report cards for the magazine, itself, for individual games, and for game companies and game moderators. Now, whether it proves to be a success or a disaster, or something in between, only time will ultimately bear that out.

I think you mean well, but how could you possibly know that sort of thing from some 20+ companies/games? You've said you've had a hard time getting any input from some of the larger game purveyors, let alone the others.

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PlayByMail.Net is a PBM oriented website, whose aim is to promote play by mail gaming and to give PBM gamers a place to gather. From this website has evolved the PBM Wiki, a blog, and Suspense & Decision magazine, a PBM magazine for the 21st Century. The site contains both a discussion forum and a blog. The site seeks to facilitate PBM gaming by serving as a major modern resource for play by mail.